


Breathe

by decco6226



Category: Splatoon
Genre: Abandonment, Also wrote this at five in the morning, Angst, Character Death, Graphic Description of Corpses, Heavy Angst, I tried super hard, Lots of Angst, Post-Apocalypse, Rescue, Slow Death, Struggle of Surviving, Suffering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-13
Updated: 2020-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:41:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23128714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/decco6226/pseuds/decco6226
Summary: After an accident, the girls of Team Purple try to save their leader.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 9





	Breathe

It all went wrong in the matter of an hour. 

Aviator was dead. Vintage had taken a pistol in the outer regions of the abandoned Inkopolis and shot the shirtless Purple Team sniper clean through the chest. Even as Paisley gripped that wet body close from the rain, the back seat of the car soaking with wetness - rain? Ink? Blood? Who knew. 

The car was speeding, sending zooming sounds through their ears as it raced across the concrete, Stitch laying on the petal full force. The rain came down in heavy splashes, violent pours that made it impossible to see out of any window in the car. Thunder boomed above in the black sky, a single streak of lightning raced across the night. 

Paisley had her hands pressed over the chest bullet wound of Skull, sweat pouring off his face and naked chest. The ink was pooling around his green camo shorts, and yet, the sniper was… smiling in his heavy breath. “Paisley, it’s all right… it’s alright…” He said between breaths - almost like he was completely relaxed. 

Maybe he was. Or was it the lack of blood and ink?

“Hold on, Skull.” She replied, speaking to his bandanaed face, trying to calm him down - probably herself more than him. “Hold on. You’re gonna be okay, okay? We’re gonna get you to a hospital, yeah? Just hold on, all right?”

Stitch took a quick glance back to see Paisley pressed up against Skull’s bare chest as he smiled behind his bandana. She couldn’t see it, but she knew he was smiling…

“I saw it through the clouds.” He smiled at Paisley, mindlessly, all common sense out like the blood all over the back seat. “I saw through the trees. A plane.”

The double hospital doors bashed open, one flying off its hinges as Stitch pushed the iron gurney into it forcefully, Skull still lying on it. The girl leaned down a bit as she pushed on through the narrow hallway. “C’mon, it’s all right…!” She encouraged. “We’re there…!”

Skull’s face looked forward blankly. A dirty face, blood around his eye and nose. 

A cloudy dawn at the abandoned hospital, the building already looking like it was left for five years rather than a month. 

“C’mon!” Paisley yelled as she ran through the tiny, empty hallway, guiding Stitch. “Stay with us! Come on!” She ran into the large, open room of the operation room, halting her movement mid-run, and aiming her Aerospray.

Skull was pushed through the last hallway, staring blankly to the side. 

A shot burst through the empty hospital from Paisley’s gun, and the lock flew off the metal cabinet door. Skull swung around on the metal gurney, his head and bandana swaying to the left as he bled out. 

Another gunshot as the second lock burst off, and Paisley tossed her gun onto the silver counter with an echoey clang as it landed on a thin sheet, and the cabinet door opened widely like a wide double door. 

Stitch looked up. “Paisley!”

Said girl whipped her head around as she was searching the medical cabinet. “Find morphine!” She ordered, and the girls circled around the operating room like a dance. Stitch went double hands into the cabinet, and Paisley grabbed the I.V. pole with the fluids already on it, dragging it back to Skull, almost a presentation of a waltz of death. “We can do this, Stitch! We can do this!”

“I don’t know what these are!” She instantly called back, her voice not only filled with anxiety, but confusion and panic. Which drugs amongst all the vials of liquid, bottles of pills stacked and stacked, was the right one? She picked up a random inhaler as Paisley pulls the cap off an I.V. needle. “Salbutamol!?”

Silence. And then Paisley is talking softly to Skull, his eyes open, staring sideways as his head leans against the hard silver. “C’mon, Skull. Come on, Skull.”

“Adrenaline!?” Stitch throws out there, and Paisley hummed out the “yes,” as Stitch put it to the side. “Diamorphine!?” She grabbed the vial.

“Yeah.” She called back as the needle was inserted into his ulnar vein. And then she ran around the table again to his other side as the morning light lit them. “We need to bag him.” She explained, panicked, as she grabbed the bag valve mask from off one of the counters. 

Stitch grabbed a syringe as Paisley placed the mask over Skull’s still mouth. “Deep breaths, Skull. Deep breaths.” The girl behind the bandana encouraged. She then nudged Stitch shakily. “H-hold it on.” She explained quickly, and then pointed to the clear bag. “Push it, push it.” She explained. 

Huffs filled the room from the bag. That’s all that came out.

“Just keep going.” Paisley encouraged as she pressed the needle through the rubber stopper. “Just keep going.”

Stitch did, and she continued, but she looked up at Paisley as she was pushing the bag rhythmically. “He’s not breathing…” She said between tears, hopeless. 

Her partner pulled the plunger back with her teeth, the clear liquid of adrenaline flowing downwards through the needle, and into the valve to the mark. Pushing the air out, she immediately pushed the metal into his thigh. And yet he did not move. 

“Come on…” Stitch begged the boy between the empty huffs of the Ambu bag. “Please…”

“Come on, hang on Skull,” Paisley said, but the panicked voice was rising. “Breathe, breathe! Fuck it!” She tossed the bag away.

“Paisley?”

“Move.”

And she bent down to his empty eyes, his cold lips, and pressed her tan warmth against his blue cool. A puff of air.

“C’mon Skull.” She said, practically an order as she shoved on his bare, bloody chest with both palms. “Skull, breathe! Breathe!”

Another kiss of death.

“C’mon Skull.” A pump. “Breathe!” Pump. “Breathe!” Another. “Skull, breathe!”

Stitch backed away in fear.

“ _ Breathe! _ ” She screamed so loud she tore the vocal cords. 

His eyes just store to the side. 

“Breathe!” She ordered, each time another pump on the bare chest. “ _ Fucking brea-  _ **_Fucking breathe!_ ** ” Her voice died out and turned to sobs against the chest of the deceased sniper, and Stitch just store at that white face, shaking her head in disbelief. His eyes were so wide, so clouded… there was nothing in them. No curiosity, understanding… no wonder…

The Aerospray user huffed highly against his skin, smeared with purple ink and red blood, creating a colorful painting on the pale canvas. 

A sniff from Stitch. “What are we gonna do now…?”

She didn’t answer as she kept a firm grip on his palm, as if for some reason if she held on, he would be holding on too. Yet the tears stopped.

“Paisley? What are we gonna do now…?” She repeated lightly. 

The blank stare came from Paisley in return as she looked down. A shaky breath from her lips came, followed by two concluded words as she store into her partner’s eyes: “We move.” And she furthered her point by walking over to the silver counter and picking up the Aerospray that once held so many memories. That unlocked the doors of wonder and excitement before it unlocked the doors of the medical cabinet. She held it to her hip.

Stitch sniffed through her tears as she approached Skull’s body on the bed of silver. He was lying there, his head resting on his cheek, the wide eyes staring directly at her. She went to reach out to the bandana… to see the smile she knew was there when he took the last breath Paisley ordered to keep going… but she didn’t take it off. She knew it, and that was all. 

Instead, she reached into his camo pants pocket and took out the Browning Hi-Power with the black grips, and store at it as it rested in one palm. The gun that took the boys… She gripped the barrel of the gun as she let the memories and tears out, and turned one last time to look at the dirty white face. 

Curious eyes were now gone. Both from the dead, and the living. 

Out the two females walked, the operation room double doors slowly closing behind them as they walked into that tiny hallway, side by side, moving, as Skull had taught them…

It all went wrong in the matter of an hour. 


End file.
